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Growing a Human - Another Chapter of my recent life history.

I am not sure, but I've had so many crazy things happen in my life, it can get confusing, so if I'm gonna be boring and self indulgent and bore you with tales aout my life, the least I could do is post it in stages so as not to confuse you.

This one concerns the problems myself and my now husband had when trying to concieve our first child together. But not in great detail in case anyone is eating. Lol

The pregnancy problems coupled with the delivery and the struggles I had during his first year would make very long reading, and I have no intention of writing a detailed account of his labour because I feel you would not wish to read it, and in any case I remember very little of it. So i'm not sure if this post is gonna contain everything or if that will be saved for future posts.

My husband (Lets call him "B") and I moved in together almost a year after he rescued me from living in the city where I grew up. We were very happy, and after living together for almost 2 years (I think!) we decided we would like to try for a baby.

After the previous problems I had with pregnancies were stemmed from a heart condition my ex partner had in his family, I was pretty confident in the chances of having a straightforward time of it.

Not so.

Month after month went by. No pregnancy.
I started to become obsessed - charting my cycle, sticking a thermometer under my armpit to take my base body temp before getting out of bed, and sex slowly started to become a timetabled activity according to the times we were most likely to get pegnant, instead of it being a loving, spontaneous act.

In short, I was beginning to be a pregzilla from hell. But I couldn't see it at the time.
My poor husband.

After 2 years of trying, we still had no success, so we went to the doctors to ask for tests to be done. We were seen together, and then seperately. I was new to this particular surgery, and I was astonished and shocked when the doctor said to me "Do you really think people like you should be thinking of having children?" I asked him what did he mean? He replied "Do you not think that as your sight is impaired, your ability to take care of a child might also be impaired?"
I replied to him that if he had read my notes properly, he would see that I infact already DO have a child - and had been a single parent with sight loss with no issues about being a parent. (What an obnoxious Twunt.)

Tests were arranged. I had to have a blood sample taken, B had to visit the wank bank and make a deposit. Unfortunately for my timetable he had to "restrain from ejaculation" (what a lovely phrase!) for a certain amount of time before his appointment.

And we waited.

We recieved a letter inviting us to discuss the test results with our Consultant, and to decide on the most suitable course of fertility treatment. The appointment was in 7 weeks time.

B didn't have the excuse of wank bank appointments to hide behind, so I seemed to be on some kind of mission to become the most obsessive, defensive/aggressive woman on the planet. Every pregnancy announced by family or friends cut through me like a knife and made me feel like a failure. Especially the unplanned ones.

I began to resent B's reluctance to stick with my timetable, and honestly couldn't see how much of a controlling bitch I was becoming about it.

My cycle was at this point all over the place. i was doing pregnancy tests every few days because I had no idea anymore whe my fertile days were - in hindsight this was probably because of the stress of the situation. It was a regular routine, every 3 days I would take a pregnancy test, and a couple of minutes later stomp out of the bathroom and be in a mood for the rest of the day.

The day of the appointment was a week away, and I started to think of it differently. Instead of it being a deadline to which if we hadn't become pregnant by then, I would be deemed a failure, I began to see it a the start of Plan B.

I took my last pregnancy test the da before the appointment. It became a regular ritual - pee in a pot, dip the stick, clean the pot and have my morning wash while waiting for the test to work, look at it, ask B to double check it, take a photo of it with a camera in "Negative" mode (because on a particular forum it was well known that positive pregnancy tests that couldn't be seen with the naked eye could sometimes be see when a camera is in negative setting), ask B to double check that, get pissed off, throw test in bin, delete photo, and be angry.

I was really fed up with it now. I didn't want to read the test, I didn't see the point as we were going to the hospital the next day. The phone rang, so i took the call and then started to get my daughter ready for school.

B shouted down to me that "You've left a bloody pee stick on the side of the bath, please come and shift it". Apparently he didn't know which end had been dipped in pee and didn't want to pick it up!

I snapped back at him to grow a set and just put it in the bin and wash his hands afterwards. He shouted back that it's all a waste of money anyway because this one is a duff batch because it's got two lines on it instead of one.

?!?!?!?!?!

I ran up the stairs, and even with MY fckd up eyes it was plain to see there were indeed two lines. All this time in checking my tests, B thought that he should've been looking for a "Plus" sign for Positive!

I was in a state of surreal shock. My hands were shaking, I started crying. B looked at me as if I was having some kind of nervous breakdown. I realised that he didn't know the significance of the two lines, because he started saying "Don't worry, we've got the appointment tomorrow, and we can start to get this all sorted out". I sobbed that the two lines mean pregnant. Then he cried!

I kept saying between sobs that it must be wrong. I've heard all about false positive results, and this must be one. B said we should phone the hospital to ask their advice.

I tried to keep calm, and rang the hospital - the poor woman on the end of the phone was bombarded with me telling her all this when she was actually only the switchboard operator who had to put my call through to the right department!

I was put through to a lady, and I tried my best to calmly explain. She brought up our details, and I asked her if we could still come to the appointment. She patiently replied "Well, if you've had a positive pregnancy test, it usually means you're pregnant. And if you're pregnant, you don't need to come to the appointment because you've done it all by yourself, you clever mummy!"

I STILL couldn't understand. I wanted to keep the appointment that we'd waited so long for!

I smiled, laughed, thanked the lady on the phone, but thought this was some kind of elaborate joke.

We'd done it.

We were gonna grow a human!

And, as if the week couldn't get any better, the da after we discovered we'd won all inclusive tickets to the Download festival!!